- Israel: Regime thugs attack anti-war protesters
Source: Times of Israel [Jerusalem]
“Hundreds of anti-war activists demonstrated in Tel Aviv and dozens in other cities on Saturday, after an interim order by the High Court of Justice ordered police to allow protests on a larger scale than permitted under the IDF Home Front’s regulations, despite the military’s objection that it would not be safe amid the ongoing missile threats from Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Just before 9 p.m., however, police said the main demonstration at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square had exceeded the court’s 600-protester limit, declared the event unlawful, and violently dispersed the crowd, making 17 arrests. … Many of the demonstrators in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square had waved signs demanding an end to the ongoing war with Iran, while others decried a newly passed law enshrining the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists.” (04/05/26)
- Screenwriters’ union, Hollywood studios reach four-year tentative agreement
Source: KRQE News
“The screenwriters[‘] union and Hollywood studios reached a surprise four-year tentative agreement after roughly three weeks of negotiation. The Writers Guild of America West said on X that its negotiating committee unanimously approved a tentative agreement with The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios. The alliance confirmed the deal in a separate statement on its website Saturday. … The contract agreement, a year longer than a typical three-year deal, must be approved by the guild’s board and members before it is ratified.” (04/05/26)
- Eye surgery marathon restores sight for some South Africans
Source: SFGate
“Gladys Khoza had missed being able to see her family. Not because they couldn’t visit, but because the 84-year-old had vision problems. Now that has changed. Khoza is one of 133 people whose sight was restored during a ‘marathon’ of free cataract surgeries conducted by doctors in South Africa at two hospitals over two weekends last month. ‘Wow!’ a delighted Khoza whispered as a nurse peeled back a bandage a day after her operation, and the world came back into view. ‘Can you see me?’ the nurse asked. ‘Very well,’ Khoza replied, a big grin on her face. Patients in South Africa’s public health service can be on waiting lists for years for the simple 15-20-minute cataract operation. Officials said some of those who were selected from hospital waiting lists for the surgeries had been waiting since 2019 to see properly again.” (04/04/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/wow-the-eye-surgery-marathon-that-restored-22188841.php
- Netherlands: Police probe explosion outside a pro-Israel Christian center
Source: CBS News
“A small blast outside a pro-Israel Christian center in a central city in the Netherlands is under investigation. The explosion on Friday night caused limited damage at the Israel Centre, which is run by Christians for Israel, a non-profit in the city of Nijkerk, police said. No one was injured. Police appealed for witnesses and said nobody has been arrested. … The incident comes after a string of similar nighttime attacks in Belgium, Britain and the Netherlands that have heightened concerns over antisemitism in the wake of the war in the Middle East.” (04/04/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/netherlands-police-explosion-pro-israel-christian-center/
- Trump seeks $152 million to reopen Alcatraz
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“US President Donald Trump is seeking $152m (£115m) to reopen the infamous Alcatraz prison as part of his proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year. Located near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the site, also known as The Rock, was once regarded as one of America’s most notorious prisons, but has served as a tourist attraction in recent years. The budget request is seeking money ‘to rebuild Alcatraz as a state-of-the-art secure prison facility’, with funds covering the first year of costs. The plan has been met with scepticism by a number of politicians in California, with questions raised about the final cost of the project and the challenges of running Alcatraz as an active prison. The maximum security facility was closed in 1963. As a tourist site, it is currently run by the National Park Service.'” (04/04/26)
- Artemis II toilet acts up again as astronauts speed toward the moon
Source: SFGate
“Now more than halfway to the moon, the Artemis II astronauts prepared for their historic lunar fly-around to push deeper into space than even the Apollo astronauts. On the downside, their toilet is on the blink again. The three Americans and one Canadian are set to reach their destination Monday, photographing the mysterious lunar far side as they zoom around. It is the first moon-bound crew in more than 53 years, picking up where NASA’s Apollo program left off. ‘The Earth is quite small, and the moon is definitely getting bigger,’ pilot Victor Glover reported. Until the Orion capsule’s bathroom is fixed, Mission Control has instructed the astronauts to break out more of the backup urine collection bags. The so-called lunar loo malfunctioned following Wednesday’s liftoff and has been hit-and-miss ever since. A version of the Artemis II toilet was tested on the International Space Station several years ago.” (04/04/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/artemis-ii-astronauts-are-more-than-halfway-to-22188970.php
- Stop Pretending Military Spending is About “Defense”
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“At the height of the US war in Vietnam, in 1969, the US government spent about $85.5 billion ($761 billion in inflated 2026 dollars) on ‘defense.’ In 1991, when the US deployed hundreds of thousands of troops for Desert Storm, the US government spent about $313 billion, or $750 billion accounting for inflation. In 2004, while fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, that number was about $450 billion, or $780 billion in 2026 dollars. … The president keeps telling us THIS war will be over Real Soon Now, and he started talking about a $1.5 trillion military budget months before he launched Operation Epic Fail, so the 40% bump clearly isn’t about Iran. In what universe does the already bloated US military need nearly half again as much money next year as this year, and twice as much as it needed during previous wars?” (04/03/26)
- The Republican Plan To Nationalize Elections Is Performative Nonsense
Source: Reason
by Steven Greenhut“Under Donald Trump’s leadership, the GOP’s outlook is simple: Every election they win is a reflection of the will of the people. Every election they lose is rigged. The president never conceded the 2020 election, nor apologized for the January 6 Capitol attack. That was the result of angry partisans taking seriously Trump’s bogus election-fraud claims. Trump continues to push the tiresome rigged-election narrative even though he failed to win the dozens of court cases making such claims. Lately, Republicans aren’t doing well at the polls. … Instead of moderating their policies or engaging in normal soul searching, Republicans are doubling dow — and trying to nationalize elections by promoting something called the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) America Act.” (04/03/26)
https://reason.com/2026/04/03/the-republican-plan-to-nationalize-elections-is-performative-nonsense/
- The Last Conservatives
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“What is sometimes described by the aggrandizing term ‘judicial activism’ is not really jurisprudence at all, properly understood: It is what happens when judges (and the legal commentariat) decide on the outcome first — ‘Of course Colorado can use the law to silence those homophobic creeps!’ — and then fill in the legal arguments post hoc and willy-nilly. But the desire for such outcome-driven jurisprudence, long a hallmark of the progressive model of social change, is increasingly prevalent among Republicans, for obvious reasons: There is no one in these United States more offended by a display of principle — or by adherence to official duties — than Donald Trump, who is the most profoundly morally corrupt man ever to occupy the office he holds.” (04/03/26)
- Deuce Bigelow, Political Philosopher
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Americans have not endured a military draft since the 1970s. Our bodies and very lives aren’t conscript. Just our fortunes. Not perfect, true, but as political trades go it’s better for equal freedom than slightly lower taxes and a return of the draft, which conscripts some to benefit (the story runs) ‘all.’ The all-volunteer force has produced the world’s best military … without ‘slave’ labor. Comedian Rob Schneider thinks differently.” (04/03/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/04/03/deuce-bigelow-political-philosopher/
- Why Is America Experiencing A Lower Birthrate?
Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer“An oddly divergent narrative has taken hold in the commentary class. On one hand, many argue that America’s declining birthrate is the predictable result of too much prosperity. As societies grow wealthier, more educated, and more urban, they tend to have fewer children — a pattern across nearly every developed nation. Meanwhile a competing view holds that Americans are not having children because they are not wealthy enough — that the prime childbearing generations are facing stagnant wages, rising costs, and downward mobility. These two explanations seem contradictory, yet both contain elements of truth — and even work in tandem.” (04/04/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/04/04/why-is-america-experiencing-a-lower-birthrate/
- A seed of peace in the Iran war
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“Over the past 100 years of wars, one incentive for peace has been a shared interest in preventing or ending famines – by opening humanitarian corridors. Adversaries would pause hostilities to allow food-related products to reach blameless, hungry civilians. Such a moment of goodwill sometimes opened a diplomatic window for a war to end. A similar tenderness toward the innocent is now being expressed during the Iran war. A number of countries including Italy, as well as the United Nations, are probing a diplomatic deal in which Iran would allow ships to sail through the Strait of Hormuz carrying raw materials for agricultural fertilizer made in Gulf Arab countries. Until the current war with Iran started Feb. 28, about a third of the world’s supplies of petroleum-based synthetic fertilizer products passed through the maritime choke point.” (04/03/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0403/A-seed-of-peace-in-the-Iran-war
- The Leading Realist Theorist Ignores Reality to Depict Putin as the Victim
Source: The UnPopulist
by Tom G Palmer“Ideas really do have consequences. That claim may seem obvious to many, but its rejection is a core component of Mearsheimer’s brand of realism, and central to one of the most glaringly erroneous accounts of why Russia attacked Ukraine. Many realists — Mearsheimer chief among them — repeatedly insist that Russia is the victim of bullying by liberal democracies. They claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a defensive response rather than an act of imperialist aggression and have rushed to ‘explain’ Russia to the rest of us. That blame-Ukraine narrative not only naively mirrors Kremlin propaganda; it is wholly at odds with reality.” (04/04/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-leading-realist-theorist-ignores
- Chile’s Hard Right Isn’t as Trumpy as It Wants to Seem
Source: Persuasion
by Quico Toro“How to keep a consensus while pretending to break it.” (04/03/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/chiles-hard-right-isnt-as-trumpy
- In Defense of Plea Bargaining
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“In theory, criminal conviction in the US legal system is by the unanimous vote of a jury. In practice, the overwhelming majority of felony convictions are due to plea bargaining, the defendant pleading guilty in exchange for reduced charges or an agreement by the prosecutor to ask for a lower sentence. I have criticized the system in the past, mostly on the grounds that a prosecutor can make it in the interest of an innocent defendant to plead guilty by charging him with additional offenses, not because the prosecutor believes he is guilty of them and can be convicted but to persuade him to plead guilty of the lesser offense whether or not he committed it. It recently occurred to me that, while there are serious problems with plea bargaining as it now exists, there could be uses for it.” (04/04/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-plea-bargaining
- The Mass Media Are Evil, But They’re Also Really Dumb
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“The New York Times has printed an article with the headline ‘A North American Treaty Organization Without America?,’ apparently having spent the entire Ukraine war completely unaware that NATO stands for North ATLANTIC Treaty Organization. At the same time, CNN ran a segment on an American bomber whose plane was shot down over Iran in which analyst Amy McGrath suggested that the Iranians might help the pilot because they’re ‘happy’ he’s bombing their country, saying the pilot would be worried because they don’t know ‘if you’re gonna be picked by somebody who is going to turn you over to the Iranian forces that are gonna use you and capture you, or is the population happy that you’re there?’ Really illustrates how fucked western journalism is, doesn’t it?” (04/04/26)
- How campus deplatforming has evolved since WWII
Source: Expression
by Sean Stevens“What postwar data reveals about the evolution of campus culture.” (04/03/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/how-campus-deplatforming-has-evolved
- Trump Realized He Can Just Do Things. Who Can Stop Him?
Source: Reason
by Gene Healy“There are far too few checks left on executive power.” (for publication 05/26)
- Hormuz is not a tool to end the war but how Iran wins the aftermath
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Mohammed Eslami & Zeynab Malakouti“Trump has miscalculated again. He is trying to win the battle; Iran is focused on winning the war. In Tehran’s plan, the strait is not a tool to end the war, but a permanent fixture for its aftermath.” (04/04/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/strait-of-hormuz-and-iran/
- All the pieces lining up for regime change in Iran
Source: New York Post
by Zineb Riboua“‘I think we’ve had regime change’ in Iran, President Donald Trump declared Sunday. In his prime-time address Wednesday night, he repeated it: ‘Regime change has occurred.’ Critics dismissed Trump’s claim out of hand. They’re wrong — because they’re measuring regime change by the wrong standard. ‘Regime change’ doesn’t necessarily mean an invasion, a decapitation strike, a new flag over the capital. That was Iraq and Afghanistan, where American power underwrote both the military campaign and the political reconstruction that followed. Iran is a different problem, and Trump is running a different playbook. Start with a basic fact: Iran is a revolutionary state. Its survival depends on three pillars — an ideology, a patronage network and a coercive apparatus drawing legitimacy from a founding idea. To bring such a system down, all three must fail simultaneously. And Iran was already decomposing when Operation Epic Fury began.” (04/03/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/04/03/opinion/all-the-pieces-are-lining-up-for-regime-change-in-iran/
- Sitcoms: A Defense
Source: Liberalism.org
by Shal Marriott“Liberalism, of course, is more than just a set of principles, or formal, institutional, or legal rules. It is a habit of character, and it requires cultivating an orientation toward those values which form the basis of liberal institutions. From this perspective, liberalism can be understood as a practice. It is not enough that we merely believe in the principles of freedom, fairness, and equality — we have to enact them in our personal lives. Rather than being merely an abstract theory, liberalism as an ideology informs who we are as members of a political community — indeed, the survival of liberal institutions requires that at least some of us adopt and adhere to this outlook. One way to cultivate these values is through an engagement with works of popular culture. Even sitcoms—or so I hope to convince you.” (04/03/26)
- A MAGA Crack-up?
Source: Mother Jones
by David Corn“Often political movements end up as circular firing squads, especially when there’s a competition for leadership. The same can be true for cults. With Trump’s misnamed Make America Great Again cult movement, the firing squad is shaped more like a Möbius strip. In the past year or so, MAGA World has been racked with a series of cross-cutting feuds, with incoming and outgoing fire ricocheting across the Trumpian landscape in all directions, causing chaos and confusion, as multiple conspiracy theories clash and vitriolic accusations pile up. An outsider cannot keep track of the infighting without a program or a wire diagram that would make Carrie Mathison proud.” (04/03/26)
- Why the US south is rising
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Douglas Carswell“While New York and California are losing population, states like South Carolina and Alabama are not only gaining residents at a record rate, but they are also experiencing rapid economic growth. A recent JL Partners poll captures a shift in perception: 36% of Americans now expect the South to lead economic growth over the next decade — far ahead of the West Coast (23%), Northeast (21%), and Midwest (19%). This is quite a transformation for a region sometimes regarded as a backwater.” (04/03/26)
- Trump’s Iran War: And the Big Fool Says to Press On
Source: Common Dreams
by Joseph Gerson“President Trump apparently has yet to appreciate Abraham Lincoln’s admonition that ‘You can’t fool all of the people all of the time’. Among others, oil and stock markets saw through the flimflam. Energy prices soared once again while stock markets from Manhattan to Manila took a dive. One has to wonder when the billionaires behind Trump, Vance, and their mandarins will conclude that it’s time to pull the plug, to insist on US regime change via the 25th amendment, for Congress to refuse to pick up the bill, or for the generals, admirals, and troops who have tolerated Secretary Hegseth’s white nationalist cheerleading to finally say one simple word: ‘No!'” (04/04/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-s-iran-war-and-the-big-fool-says-to-press-on
- Gen-Z YouTuber Hammers Home Financial Responsibility
Source: The Daily Economy
by Laura Williams“Foul-mouthed and fiery, Caleb Hammer is bringing sound financial advice and personal accountability to the YouTube-TikTok generation.” (04/03/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/gen-z-youtuber-hammers-home-financial-responsibility/
- William Blake’s Daddy Issues
Source: Law & Liberty
by Aidan Harte“It’s hard to explain why Blake, a radical possessed by apocalyptic visions and wild fancies, has so eclipsed his peers.” (04/03/26)
- In Batteries We Trust
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman“The war goes on, and so does the global energy crisis. In fact, I believe that prices of oil futures remain too low given how much spot prices will need to rise to resolve the shortages that will hit once oil supplies that were shipped before the Strait of Hormuz was closed are exhausted. But a better future is coming, despite Donald Trump’s assault on renewable energy as he tries to drag us back into the fossil fuel past.” (04/03/26)
- Barter, Media of Exchange, and Colonial America
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter“Where did money get its value? The original purchasing power of an ounce of gold (or another commodity) as money depended on the array of goods and services (or fractions thereof) for which that ounce of gold could have been exchanged in barter in the immediate past (e.g., the day before). In other words, a money’s purchasing power comes from its non-money exchange value. This leads to a logically-complete explanation for the origin of money’s purchasing power. It is also worth mentioning that this process happens spontaneously, through subjective valuations and market exchanges, rather than money being ‘invented.'” (04/03/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/barter-media-exchange-and-colonial-america
- No Sacred Ground
Source: Law & Liberty
by Daniel N Gullotta“West Park Presbyterian Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is facing an existential reckoning. After more than 150 years in the neighborhood, the congregation has voted to sell its property, and the landmarked Romanesque Revival building now faces demolition. Long celebrated as one of the city’s architectural treasures, its potential loss has sparked public outrage, drawing protests and celebrity defenders such as Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, and Christian Slater. But despite these signs of support, weekly attendance hovers around a dozen people, the congregation is buried in unmanageable debt, and restoration would cost tens of millions of dollars. West Park Presbyterian isn’t unique.” (04/03/26)
- A Strongman’s Kind Of War
Source: The Weekly Dish
by Andrew Sullivan“The current clusterfuck in Iran makes the best case for a republic, and its virtues.” (04/03/26)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/a-strongmans-kind-of-war-81f
- Why Trump fired Bondi and chose this moment for a Justice Department reset
Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Turley“There is an old joke that scientists switched from lab rats to lawyers because you do not get as attached to lawyers. President Donald Trump has shown the same tendency to avoid becoming attached to either private or government counsel. Attorney General Pam Bondi is only the latest in a long line of lawyers let go by a president who was made famous with the tagline ‘You’re fired.’ There is no evidence of bad blood between President Trump and Bondi. The attorney general has been attacked over her loyalty to the president and has been by his side in some of the most precarious moments, from impeachment to criminal defense. As his ‘apprentices’ learned, this is not personal; it’s business.” (04/03/26)
- Birthright and Wrong
Source: Unpopular Front
by John Ganz“On Wednesday, Trump became the first president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court. Maybe he is simply trying to intimidate the Justices who have already struck down much of his program, but it’s telling what case he picked: Trump v. Barbara concerns his executive order that attempted to effectively end birthright citizenship. I think if you wanted to boil down the Trumpist project to its essence, it’s an attack on American citizenship itself.” (04/03/26)
- Why Trump’s Speech Was So Worrying
Source: Foreign Policy
by Howard W French“Anxious viewers may have expected a clarifying statement of the purpose of the U.S. war against Iran, a vision of its conclusion, or at least a credible timeline for its end. Anyone old enough to remember prime-time speeches by previous presidents during wartime may have hoped for a return to some of the solemnity that has typically marked such moments. On Wednesday, they got none of this. What national and global audiences saw instead was perhaps the clearest evidence yet that the leader of what has long been the world’s predominant superpower is an utterly chaotic thinker, whose aptitude for his job — never obvious to begin with — appears to be in accelerating decline.” (04/03/26)
- The Expanded Trump War Glossary: Still More of What He *Really* Means About Iran
Source: The Bulwark
by Will Saletan“Language is constantly evolving, and Donald Trump is a restless innovator. Three weeks ago, The Bulwark published a glossary of terms he had redefined in his war with Iran. The list included imminent, obliterate, and unconditional surrender. Since then, he has added more words and phrases to his lexicon. Here are some of the most creative.” (04/03/26)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-expanded-glossary-iran-words
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 04/05/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“The ‘Attractive’ Soft-Pedalling of Christian Nationalism.” (04/05/26)
- Unattended Baggage, episode 335
Source: Unattended Baggage
“This time, it’s personal.” (04/04/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-335-this-time-its-personal
- The Good Fight, 04/04/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Sebastian Mallaby on AI Safety and the Race for Superintelligence.” (04/04/26)
- The Focus Group, 04/04/26
Source: The Bulwark
“Swing Voters Absolutely HATE Trump’s Iran War (w/ Ashley Parker).” (04/04/25)
- AI Summer, 04/03/26
Source: AI Summer
“Nat Purser explains how progressives are thinking about AI.” (04/03/26)
https://www.aisummer.org/p/nat-purser-explains-how-progressives
- Freedom Works with Paul Molloy, 04/04/26
Source: Freedom Works
“Wayne Crews, Competitive Enterprise Institute ‘Ten Thousand Commandments.'” (04/04/26)
https://internetradiopros.com/freedomworks/?name=2026-04-04_zfw04032026.mp3
- The Intercept Briefing, 04/03/26
Source: The Intercept
“Journalist Sarah Posner on how the Christian right’s end times views are shaping U.S. foreign and domestic policies.” (04/03/26)
https://theintercept.com/2026/04/03/trump-christian-right-iran-evangelicals/
- The Brian Nichols Show, 04/04/26
Source: Lions of Liberty
‘He Used ChatGPT to DUMP His Girlfriend?!” (04/04/26)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/tbns-he-used-chatgpt-to-dump-his-girlfriend
- The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, 04/03/26
Source: The Weekly Dish
“Tom Holland On Our Christian World.” (04/03/26)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/tom-holland-on-our-christian-world